Defense policy

Chinese hackers have invaded computers at the federal Office of Personnel Management, accessing personal information relating to at least four million current and former government employees. The New York Times reports: The Obama administration on Thursday announced what appeared to be one of the largest breaches of federal employees’ data, involving at least four million current and former government workers in an intrusion that officials said apparently originated in China. »

Not Michèle Flournoy. She has ruled herself out. Reportedly, her goal is to be Hillary Clinton’s Defense Secretary. In theory, holding the position under President Obama doesn’t preclude holding it under Clinton. Moreover, it is far from certain that Clinton will ever be in a position to offer Flournoy the job. But she must believes that running Obama’s Pentagon is a toxic gig. Not Sen. Jack Reed, another frequently mentioned »

Good news. Chuck Hagel is out as Secretary of Defense, or will be as soon as a successor is nominated and confirmed. Let’s hope that any effort by the Republican Senate to block the confirmation of Obama administration appointees will exempt the Secretary of Defense position for national security reasons. The reason for Hagel’s ouster (let’s not take seriously the claim that he wanted out) is said to be that »

President Obama has found uses for the U.S. military in spite of himself. Max Boot points out that he has just sent 3,000 troops to Liberia to “fight” Ebola; 1,500–and counting–to Iraq to counter ISIS; and hundreds, possibly thousands, more to Eastern Europe to deter Russia. In addition, Obama sent more than 150 troops to Africa to fight Joseph Kony. And he keeps sending troops to carry out various Special »

Why is President Bush so much more popular than President Obama among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans? That’s an easy one. Bush was the president of let’s roll. Obama is the president of let’s retreat. Iraq and Afghanistan veterans subscribed to the motto that America’s colors “don’t run.” Under Obama, however, they have. There must also be a sense that Bush had a closer personal connection than Obama with those who »

As Scott points out below, Chuck Hagel announced yesterday that the Obama administration plans to shrink the Army to its lowest troop levels since before World War II. What are we to make of this? Peter Wehner provides the correct answer in the title of a post called “Obama Consciously Engineering America’s Decline.” As Wehner explains: [Obama] views the weakening of American power as a downright positive thing, as a »

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that the Army is to shrink to its lowest troop levels since before World War II under the budget proposed Monday. The budget contemplates the mothballing of hundreds of aging aircraft and warships. If the budget is approved, the Army would drop from today’s active-duty force of 522,000 soldiers to between 440,000 and 450,000 over the next three years. “Since we are no longer »

Walter Pincus, the Washington Post’s long-time voice of conventional liberal thinking on national defense issues, is unhappy with Robert Gates’ new book. He complains that, although Gates devotes nearly half of the book to his two years at the Pentagon under President Bush, he provides “no embarrassing anecdotes or acidic comments.” No doubt, there were embarrassing moments at the Pentagon while Gates was serving Bush there. But Gates’ high-profile revelations »

Earlier this year, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel took over the top jobs at the Department of State and the Department of Defense, respectively. Since then, Kerry has been hyper-active. But whatever happened to Hagel? He has impinged on our consciousness only once, as Kerry’s sidekick during congressional hearings on authorizing an attack on Syria. The impingement was slight. Kerry and Gen. Dempsey did almost all of the talking. Hagel »

Peter Robinson at Ricochet directs attention to a study by the Heritage Foundation of military enlistment to population ratios by region. It tells us that, generally speaking, folks from Red States are much more inclined to serve in the military than folks from Blue States. The most over-represented region consists of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The most under-represented region is the Northeast from Pennsylvania upwards. The Mountain West — »

Politico suggests that our friend Rep. Tom Cotton is “the last, best Hope for GOP hawks.” The idea is that, with even conservatives moving away from an interventionist mindset, Tom now carries the banner for those like Bill Kristol who hold out for the post-9/11 Republican consensus on foreign and national security policy. There is some truth to this narrative. But the story’s author, Alex Burns, falls into the Washington »

The Washington Post reports that the defense cuts mandated by the sequester are proving to be a “paradox” for the left. Keith Ellison, the ultra-leftist congressman from Minnesota, says he “feels torn” by the cuts because they further his goal of reducing the money available to the military, but contradict his goal of maximizing government spending. When in doubt, the left these days will tend to opt for government spending, »

The White House, through economist turned flack Alan Krueger, wasted no time in blaming yesterday’s lousy jobs report on the sequester. It’s a ridiculous claim. As we observed, government employment held steady, and the sequester is too recent to have affected the private sector. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s, who is frequently cited by the Obama administration, agrees that the sequester is not yet in play. Zandi told CNBC: »

Earlier this month Paul Kengor and others brought to our attention the 30th anniversary of Reagan’s famous “evil empire” speech, which was, keep in mind, chiefly a domestic policy speech where Reagan slipped in the evil empire reference that his foreign policy apparatus had managed to strip out of previous foreign policy speech drafts. But there was no getting around the objections of both the State and Defense Departments to »

Readers of a certain age will recall the battles over missile defense that raged during the Reagan administration. Virtually all Democrats opposed all forms of missile defense, deeming the concept not only unfeasible–“like hitting a bullet with a bullet,” as though that were impossible–but destabilizing as well. John Kerry’s denunciations of missile defense were typical: “a dream based on illusion, but one which could have real and terrible consequences,” As »

Our friend Mac Owens, of the Naval War College and Orbis, writes: You all know Jim Webb–bona fide Vietnam war hero, prize winning novelist, secretary of the Navy, assistant secretary of defense, Senator from Virginia. He is a man of conviction who says what he means. It turns out that his son–also Jim–is cut from the same cloth. Webb the younger gave up a promising college baseball career to join »

Mark Steyn’s weekly column is posted at NRO as “Containing Hagel.” Subhead: “Tehran is pleased that we aren’t.” Steyn does the Steynian thing with Hagel’s almost unbelievable performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. Among other things, Mark rescues a few of Hagel’s quotable quotes before they are overlooked by Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and recede into the mists of the Age of Obama. Iran figured prominently in Hagel’s »